THIS Is Why Real Art Will Always Exist – A Ramble « PekoeBlaze

Well, I thought that I’d talk about one of the reasons why real art – made by actual humans – will always exist. This was something I ended up thinking about one morning in early-mid May when I was still recovering emotionally from various stresses and depressing moods the previous afternoon.

Initially, the thing that helped me to feel vaguely ok again that afternoon was stumbling across two amazingly relaxing Youtube channels. One was a channel called “Ectoviolence” where a cool horror movie fan from the US talks about VHS cassettes and DVDs in an amazingly cool-looking studio. Just the “chill” atmosphere of these videos, the personality of the presenter and the wonderfully escapist focus on movies.

The other channel was one called “Mrs Fallout” where a woman in the US not only shows off lots of memorabilia based on the “Fallout” series of post-apocalyptic retro sci-fi videogames but, much more interestingly, opens lots of old tins of vintage survival rations (like this one). There’s just something to this.

Not just seeing “Maybe it’s still edible” food from fifty or more years ago, or the mystery of opening a sealed tin but also just the deeply reassuring fact that these rations were never actually used in the first place. That people in the past were preparing for dire, apocalyptic situations… which never happened. There is nothing more reassuring than unused survival rations from 50+ years ago.

The next morning, I was still in a bit of an emotional “survival mode”. And I had expected to just take the day off from creating anything. To just lose myself in videogames and films and stuff like that. But, thinking about those “Mrs Fallout” videos, I actually felt inspired to make original art. Since I’d felt uninspired during the previous two days, I didn’t want to waste this inspiration. So, I started making the pencil sketch for a semi-digital painting of an early 1960s character in some sort of cave-bunker filled with ration tins and bulky old technology.

And this painting felt so satisfying to make. Not just vicariously getting a sense of what it would be like to be the woman in the painting and what her mind/personality would be like (sort of “practical” and with less chaotic thoughts than mine. A hint of prim formality to her personality. A mind formed long before social media and the internet), but there was also the interesting vintage outfit that she wore (a far cry from the dull “practical” T-shirts and shorts/trousers I wear virtually every day) and just the general theme of being in some sort of hidden cave – far away from everything that had been making me feel stressed and miserable. Making this artwork felt restorative and satisfying on a deep emotional level.

And this was before I’d even finished the inking the line art (with waterproof ink rollerball and fine-liner pens) for the painting. In fact, when I finished the line art, I did something which I used to do all the time about a decade ago but don’t really do these days, I scanned a copy of the line art before I added any paint to the physical painting. Here it is:

(Click for larger image) The finished semi-digital painting should hopefully be posted here in mid-late October next year.

Far from being a chore that I ditched when I was in emotional “survival mode”, the act of making art actually helped my mood a lot. Yes, part of this was the fact that I spent an hour or so laser-focused on the present moment, my whole attention focused on the sketchbook page in front of me (rather than thinking about stressful stuff, “doomscrolling” through the news etc...). Part was because I was feeling inspired. But a lot was just immersing myself – emotionally – in what I was painting. I was creating this whole character and “world” from my imagination and I got to – in some way or another – BE all of it whilst I was painting 🙂

Leaving aside the escapism of “Ha! I get to vicariously be both a totally different person living sixty-four years in the past AND the world that she exists in“, the act of actually creating something is also inherently empowering and satisfying as well.

And this is why – no matter how much A.I. technology “advances” – there will always be actual, real human-made art. If you’re an artist, then you’ll know that there’s just something satisfying about making art which you don’t really get if you just type a description into a computer program and let it do all of the interesting creativity for you.

Because, when it is at it’s best, there’s something almost pantheistic and/or god-like to making a piece of art. Shaping part of an imaginary world via lots of tiny moment-to-moment decisions, knowing that everything on the page is a product of your imagination etc…

It’s relaxing, it’s satisfying, it’s empowering and it is something that you’ll only get to experience if you pick up a pencil, pen, brush or stylus and actually make the art yourself.

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Anyway, I hope that this was interesting 🙂